In order to check any such tendency, it had been the custom of late years to introduce religious services, begun by the minister himself and continued by the elders.
As the evening fell, a group of elders stood by the back door of Long John Cameron's sorrow-stricken home, talking quietly over the sad event and arranging for the "exercises" of the night.

At a little distance from them sat Yankee, with Ranald beside him, both silent and listening somewhat indifferently to the talk of the others.

Yankee was not in his element.

He was always welcome in the homes of his comrades, for he was ready with his tongue and clever with his fingers, but with the graver and religious side of their lives he had little in common.

It was, perhaps, this feeling that drew him toward Macdonald Dubh and Ranald, so that for weeks at a time he would make their house his home.